We've talked, and written, and discussed among ourselves until we're blue in the face:

Now it is time to act.

Thanks to United for Peace and Justice, a national coalition of hundreds of groups opposed to our interventionist foreign policy, a golden opportunity presents itself on the weekend of Sept. 24-26, when a great coming together of the antiwar movement is planned.

This event, however, promises to be far more than a gathering of the usual suspects.

"America remains a superpower, but seriously overstretched. With armed forces of 1.2 million, we are fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, have troops in scores of countries, and are committed to defend dozens of others all over the world.

The U.S. budget is $400 billion in deficit, as 77 million Baby Boomers approach retirement age and eligibility for social security and Medicare.

Either the Bush tax cuts go and we recruit hundreds of thousands more troops, or the war guarantees must be re-assessed and the empire abandoned. My feeling is that when the time comes to choose, the empire goes.

The news that the U.S. government is preparing 25,000 body bags for use not in Iraq, but in Louisiana, where this administration was caught flat-footed and completely unprepared for a natural disaster, is enough of a spark to set off a social and political explosion, the reverberations of which could take down both wings of the War Party.

We are all familiar enough with our Republican war-birds, whose cries of "invade!" and "bombs away!" are heard on Fox News and the right-wing radio circuit on a daily basis.

There is lots of shoring up to do, as the Democratic rank-and-file shows increasing impatience with spineless leaders tripped up by their own rhetorical and moral ambiguity. Democrats are searching, restlessly, for real leadership – a Moses to lead us out of the Iraqi quagmire and back onto dry land.

Go and check out dailykos.com, where Democrats lash out in anger at the DLC smoothies who offer up only Bush Lite as a program. The war is increasingly the focal point of their anger and frustration, and chances are the Democrats won't have another lockstep convention of Stepford delegates.

The days when the Democratic grassroots are content with their role as hand-raisers for their timorous and thoroughly neoconized leadership are definitely over. The only question now is: will a leader emerge?

Is Senator Russ Feingold, who is showing every sign of launching a presidential bid, their Gene McCarthy, their McGovern – who, unlike his predecessors, has the potential to take the White House?

Only time will tell, but of this much we can be certain: the Democratic Party establishment, which has been staunchly pro-war up until this point, is facing a challenge from within.

Democrats, in their millions, hate this war.

In this they reflect the general feeling in the country that something is very wrong with this nation's foreign policy – and that we need to get our priorities straight.

Come home, America – from Pat Buchanan to Russ Feingold, the cry is being heard.

From right to left, in the South and in the North, in the board room and the back room – the realization is spreading that we have taken on too much, that we cannot sustain this tremendous outpouring of energy and resources, that something's got to give.

The nation is finally awakening, and not only to the massive deception carried out by the war propagandists and their fifth column in the American media, but to the fact that we have the power to change all this – that things don't have to be this way.

We don't have to live in a predatory empire: we can have our old republic back.

But only if we are willing to act now…

On Sept. 24, 1869, known as "Black Friday" in the annals of American economic history, a financial panic ensued as a result of the political manipulation of the gold market by Jay Gould and James Fisk, and the subsequent sell-off of gold reserves by the U.S. government.

"The United States government issued a large amount of money that was backed by nothing but credit. After the war ended, people commonly believed that the U.S. government would buy back the 'greenbacks' with gold."

When that promise was not forthcoming, the panic of 1869 ensued: it was a crisis of confidence in the veracity of our leaders, both political and financial. The legitimacy of the ruling regime was challenged, and the Gilded Age turned to tin as the moral stock of our rulers fell.

Let Sept. 24, 2005, be the War Party's "Black Saturday."

The day on which the promises of our rulers – that they can "liberate" Iraq and save Louisiana; that they can defend America and embark on a campaign to spread "democracy" across the globe; that they can ensure order in Baghdad and on the mean streets of our own decaying inner cities – begin to catch up with them.

They will panic – while the rest of us celebrate and begin to realize our own power to change the world instead of just mourning it.

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